A Virtual Learning Experience for Young Adult Literature Studies An 8th Grade Game-Aloud with Final Fantasy VII: Remake

A Virtual Learning Experience for Young Adult Literature Studies 

An 8th Grade Game-Aloud with Final Fantasy VII: Remake

By: Miles Harvey, Ph.D.

Albuquerque Public School

University of New Mexico

Just because I was not in a classroom with my eighth grade students did not mean we could not get together to experience a digital text that had only been released to the public just 12 hours earlier. I downloaded Final Fantasy VII: Remake, and I planned on teaching it as one might teach a book to a room of students. Instead, I would teach this story through my PlayStation and YouTube. With about six weeks left in the school year I decided to continue the track of learning I had planned for my students, which involved teaching them another full-length video game is literature. I wanted to teach them using the narrative heavy game that was originally created in 1997. This was not a new idea, our class had done this before with Detroit Become Human in-person in the first semester of the school year. My students were enthralled with the experience of exploring a digital text through a video game and then exploring the literary merit behind it. It was no shock that when I did my end of semester reflection student’s favorite experiences were centered on spending an entire unit looking at a story found in a contemporary video game.

Since my students were not going to be in class to play a video game and to share discussions and complete activities, I decided to do it anyway because it is not about having a classroom, it is about building a context for learning for students to learn within it. For me, I had my YouTube channel, Google Classroom, and the ability to stream the game so that my students could watch it for free at home. For those who had the game, they could also play along and follow the stream like a read-along. I treated Final Fantasy VII as a piece of literature using a whole-group reading strategy that I reprocessed into what I call a game aloud. This is where everyone involved gets to go through what the player is doing. I used my YouTube channel to stream me playing the game as well as teaching about it at the same time. While students were able to watch they were also able to engage in discourse about the game and talk about issues and ideas that were important to them. I was also able to reach students from other middle schools around the country who were able to join and experience the learning with us.

I created this strategy from the concept of a "read-aloud" where there is only one book and a bunch of students listening while experiencing the story. Since I wanted to teach a video game as literature, I thought I could use the same concept but I would play and stream the video game for students to experience from home by their teacher. As a daft idea at first, it was simply no different than reading a book aloud to students in a classroom, except in this case, I was able to use technology as the literary vehicle to get students a similar experience without being in the same room. 

We can all be on the same website and we can all be playing the same game together without driving to school to literally sit next to one another for it. We can deliver information across content areas if we purpose the tools and devices of teens into powerful resources (Harvey, Deuel, & Marlatt, 2020). The goal is to deliver engaging and rigorous content while also being thrifty and equitable as possible. There were some students who were not able to play, but they could watch the stream and play a part in the experience. There were students who could not watch live, so they watched the replay on the channel because their brother needed to use the only house computer at the time. 

Students watched me talk about the game and then we played the game together. While playing, I discussed the game’s narrative like a teacher would start to dig into the start of a book. We looked at the setting, characters, plot, theme, and conflict as it developed. I streamed my gameplay of Final Fantasy VII on my PlayStation 4 using the “share” button which streamed it to my YouTube Channel - Miles Harvey. From there, students could watch and comment live or through the replays. For some students who were also using PlayStation, I was able to Share Play, which meant I could “give them” my controller so they could play as I watched with everyone else, even though they did not own the game themselves. This in itself raised audience engagement as everyone loved to see a new player or reader take ownership of the text.

Students then completed activities in Google Classroom which centered around the idea of experiencing a text, so students engaged the text by discussions, writing reflections, and activities that centered around the main theme of the book. For my students, they realized the main protagonist, Cloud, was on a hero’s journey and the planet he was fighting for was crying for help. My students took action and began researching global issues that concerned them and we reported back weekly to learn more about what we were all learning in Google Hangouts. 

References

Harvey, M., Deuel, A., & Marlatt, R. ( 2020). “To Be, or Not to Be”: Modernizing Shakespeare With Multimodal Learning Stations. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 63( 5), 559– 568. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.1023

Rocket League Practice for eSports

I got a chance to explore the Share Factory video editing software on my PS4. I took some video footage and produced this video to play around with video composition to show my students next year. Don't judge my Rocket League skills. I did get a short-handed goal and a buzzer-beater to tie the game.

NCTE 2018 Recap - Where are the Video Games and New Literacies?

I had a great time at the National Council for Teacher of English in Houston, Texas. It was my first time, and it was really a chance for me to get an idea of the size and scope of it all. The conference was set in a large convention center, and I don't think I saw many people twice. The conference proceedings for NCTE were over 300 pages, and that was a little intimidating as I sat down in my hotel room Thursday night trying to figure out what sessions I would go to all weekend. It seemed like it was going to be impossible to figure out where I go because there were so many options every hour across the convention center. For example at any given time there might be 20 different sessions going on, if not more, and deciding on where to go was tough. Day-by-day, session-by-session, I found myself exploring all that NCTE had to offer. One particular area of the conference that was pretty interesting was the exhibit hall.

The exhibit hall was full of an amazing array of stakeholders involved in language arts education today. Corporations like Pearson, Scholastic, McGraw-Hill, Penguin, etc. were there to strut their stuff. The sessions at NCTE were centered on the theme of raising student voice. So, many of the sessions discussed literacy practices and traditional literary values I think that had been continuously pressed on the attendee for years. There seemed to be a big push on young adult literature and getting students to be more excited to read. There was also a big push to have students write more to build a voice and to explore traditional text in ways that help build learners. In all of the hundreds and hundreds of session there were only a few that delineated from this focus bubble. It was easy to see, NCTE was again primarily focuses on print-based literacies and a light dose of digital literacy, media literacy, and multimodal literacy. The idea of video games, virtual reality, and augmented realities as new literacies in the English classroom was held down.

Since the theme of the conference was centered on student voice, it would have seemed commonplace to have recognized the need to involve video games and virtual reality as mediums of interest involved in English education across this country, but there was basically very limited examples of this found in the conference proceedings. I found one session with Dr. Rick Marlatt who was looking at research with digital games and literacy. He was working on using Fortnite in the English Language Arts classroom as a place to act out and experience literary events. Meeting him afterwards was great because we shared some common interests and understanding towards our field of study. We both agreed there needed to be a larger presence of digital games and media in the conference sessions, but agreed that it was part of our work as researchers to push the field forward.

The basis for this was on the simple fact that students love video games, and now most adults. I felt the conference neglected to entertain this elephant in the room that seems to be video games, virtual reality, and augmented reality as places where students are spending their time making sense of the world. Many of our students are spending significantly more time in the digital world learning and exploring then they are in the real world like school, where what they're using to learn with is outdated but still commonly grounded in the interest of the student. I am hoping that by next year the conference acknowledges the ever-growing change with English education and the inclusion of video games within its practice. I would like to see constructive conversations framed around experts in the field who have a grounded understanding in the trends with video games, digital media, and their applicability in English Language Arts classrooms today. There are dozens of scholars who understand this concept well, and there are thousands of teachers who employ these strategies today without much guidance from any higher organization than their school or instructional coach. These are the innovators of today these are the teachers who seek to push the literary paradigms of tomorrow in their classrooms today. I hope to be a part of this change as it seems every day the idea of adopting more digital media like video games and virtual reality is becoming unavoidable and more interesting and acceptable by the day.

Time to See Things Differently in K-12 Literacy Education

• Edited on August 6, 2018

Miles Harvey, Ph.D.

K-12 literacy teacher training needs a technological paradigm shift and a pep talk.

As the average age of a video game player nears the average age of a teacher in this country, it appears necessary to bridge the media literacy gap between in-school literacies and out-of-school literacies. It’s time to prepare our next generation of teachers to meet the needs of our next generation of students. A new wave of literacy is upon our teachers, and many of them have little to no idea about how to address, use, or facilitate learning with technologies like virtual, mixed, or augmented reality in the classroom. For example, the idea that we teach print-based literature, but ignore video games as literacy is a travesty. Furthermore, the idea of using VR games as literary vehicles is an outlandish one to some teachers. Thus, I chose to center my dissertation research on this very topic.

How do we as teachers prepare students for that in which we are unfamiliar? Teachers need access to modern multimodal literacies in the teacher preparation program they are a part of, especially for those teaching language arts in K-12 classrooms. Students read and write in different ways than they did even five years ago, and the way they compose their thoughts through media has taken a huge leap forward in recent years. Coding is the new cursive, and even though code has no culture, I still refer to it as a language at times.

Teacher training needs to be ahead of the curve, and that’s why I use the PS4 VR, code.org, and other technologies in my graduate classes to help new teachers understand the way we make meaning in society is changing. The literary strategies of yesterday are often projections of student needs rather than culturally responsive interventions for student learning.

The literary strategies of yesterday have their place in schools, but they should not supersede the futuristic needs of students in and out of the classroom.

There’s Nothing So Good Education Can’t Ruin It

By: Miles Harvey, Ph.D.

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

The future of games as literature looks bright. Things are starting to change, and slowly, education is embracing game-based learning on a larger scale. The research is there to back up the idea that video games, especially in the language arts classroom, are ready to be used as learning vehicles. Slowly, teachers will start to embrace to use of video games, virtual reality, and augmented reality as literature in their classroom. The average age of a video game player in the United States is now 35 (ESA, 2016), which is very close to the average age of a teacher in this country, which is 42 (NCES, 2012).

The idea is that children who were once known as gamers and readers are now becoming teachers and researchers. This natural progression from casual gamer to professional is bringing some exciting changes to many disciplines. One in particular is the world of education. More and more, teachers are able to relate to their student’s gaming interests by saying, “Oh, I play that, too.” The bridge between out-of-school literacies and in-school literacies has been constructed, and now it is up to those willing to cross it.

During my dissertation defense in March of 2018, Dr. Christopher Holden from the University of New Mexico asked me a great question. He first stated, “There is nothing so good that education can’t ruin it.” He then asked, “As your ideas about using video game as literature gains more traction, how might the education world negatively impact the adoption of this idea?"

I had thought about this in recent years as I studied literacy, video games, and taught language arts and media literacy at a local middle school. For years, I had been immersed in rhetoric surrounding the world of literature from the perspective of teachers, principals, policy-makers, test developers, and various other stakeholders who all wanted to have a say in what it meant to read. There is definitely a need for various stakeholders to have a say in what students read, but things have gotten a little messy over the years. For example, the idea of banned books, grade-specific texts, young adult literature selections, or literature cannons of prescribed readings have taken away the freedom from language arts teachers across the country to get students to read what they think is important. I have a hard time believing that ninth grade teachers prefer to read, “Romeo and Juliet” every year. Nonetheless, how does this tie into the implementation of video games as literature in the classroom?

As video games are adopted and better understood by teachers, principals, policy-makers, test developers, and various other stakeholders, they will become standardized just like other literary tools. Yes, there will be banned games, grade-specific games, young adult games, and a cannon of games prescribed for students. What will be the new “Romeo and Juliet” of video games for ninth grade students? The projections of the future make me cringe, as my hopes for the implementation of video games as literature gives the teacher more freedom then shackles. I can’t imagine students being tested on their efferent stances on their gaming experiences. Rosenblatt (1978) who championed the idea of reading for the experience and not for the test would probably agree on this. I hope my future students will not be tested on their gaming fluency or gaming speed. It doesn’t make sense to test a student on playing games, as the game is the ultimate test itself (Gee, 2007).

So where do we go from here? How do we keep gaming for literary experience in the right hands so that students do not lose the enjoyment of playing them before school ruins them? How do we resurrect the enjoyment of students who were once nose deep into their favorite books and now put their nose up in the air as school has taken those books and turned them into assessment tools meant to drill and kill? How can we keep the mediums of the imagination into places where experience reigns supreme?

Destiny 2 Beta Strike Run and Discussion about Video Games and Learning with High School and College Freshman

I was lucky enough to catch a few plays of the new Destiny 2 Beta as a preview to the full game which comes out in September, and the world is buzzing about this game's release. I took the opportunity to play and discuss some educational topics about learning and gaming with some of my former middle school students who are now high school freshman, as well as a freshman in college. The goal, see what they think about games and learning by asking them a few questions. Their responses were surprising, and I think they are telling of what is to come. What do you think?

The Current Scene of DGBL Technology

          The world of gaming has never been more active or exciting since its beginnings in the early 1970’s with coin operated video games like Galaxy Game and Computer Space in 1971 Wolf (2012). According to Education Software Association’s 2016 annual report, “more than 150 million Americans play video games” (p.1). The average age of a video game player is thirty-five. The rise in computing technology has led to computer-based programs, arcades, home-based consoles, internet-based games, handheld gaming systems, mobile-based gaming, and now virtual reality gear for home-based consoles and smartphones. Since the 1970’s DGBL activities have been increasing. Reports on teenage gaming habits indicate there are good reasons to pay more attention to what students are doing when they play games.

          Console-based gaming has changed a great deal since the Magnavox Odyssey came out in 1971. The Education Software Association (2014) claimed that, “51 percent of American households own a console, and those that do own on average of 2” (p.4). In 2016, the Entertainment Software Association reported, “63 percent of households are home to at least one video game player who plays regularly” (p.2). The big players in the digital gaming industry, Valve Corporation, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo have created some of the most popular console-based gaming systems to date. It is classic rhetoric amongst middle students to debate about which video gaming console is the best. Lately, the argument has been about whether Xbox One is better than Playstation 4, or vice-versa, and the argument usually falls on two students who own opposing consoles or viewpoints. Such are the conversations that can lead to great classroom discussions and inquiry as to which console is best, to whom, and why. In my past classes, personal computer gamers rarely argued about who had the more capable machine compared to users of different gaming systems. New technologies, like the Playstation VR, set to come out in fall of 2016, will create innovative places for researchers to examine what learning looks like in virtual reality spaces. These devices, used as learning tools, will be capable of propelling teachers’ and students’ understanding of empathy and storytelling into new realms. Players will be able to become the character in the video game they are playing, and this new stance of what it means to play may change what it means to empathize within narrative spaces and texts. Researchers like Murray (1997) believed that video games would serve a greater role in developing interactive narratives, and indeed they have over the years with classics like Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, and Mass Effect 3. Brown (2008) says, “If videogames, like literature would transform consciousness and enthrall both critical and popular audiences, its creators must be artists as well as artisans, trained in the craft of writing, as well as the use of the complex tools necessary to tell stories in this new medium” (p.19).

Personal computer gaming, or better known as (PC gaming) has taken rise and is favored among many experienced and not-so experienced gamers around the world. The world of computer gaming encases more users than any other medium of digital-game based learning environments. Using computing power via laptop, tablet, or desktop, players can access thousands of games on-demand from STEAM, owned by the Valve Corporation. New to the scene digital gaming are customizable personal gaming PCs, like Alienware, made specifically to run STEAM and thousands of other video games that function like a typical console experience. League of Legends, owned by Riot Games, has surpassed World of Warcraft in users and as the top cooperatively competitive massive open online game. Tassi (2014) reported on figures that 27 million people play the game daily, and 67 million players play the game every month.

Students’ uses of mobile-based gaming have also increased in recent years. Holden (2012) says, “I believe that mobile, place-based games provides many opportunities for instantiating powerful pedagogical techniques that may have been difficult or impossible for individual instructors to enact previously” (p.43). Mobile-based games like Clash Royale, Clash of Clans, Pokemon Go, Hearthstone, Minecraft: Pocket Edition are considered current favorites within the scene of players today. These games have come a long way since mobile-based games began to appear on phones. Schilling (2011) reminds us it was Tetris that first appeared as a mobile game in 1994 on the Hagenuk MT-2000. Soon after, Snake appeared on Nokia’s 6110 in 1997. Since Snake, mobile-based games have evolved in their complexity into games like Clash Royale, which came out in 2016, and expects its players to understand the use of fifty-eight different character’s attributes and limitations during gameplay, whereas Nokia’s Snake required its users to learn one character’s attributes and limitations during gameplay. Games like Pokemon Go expect players learn about two hundred and fifty different characters in the game in order to master the game’s uses of character evolution. Now, smartphones with internet capabilities are calling researchers to examine these video games and the many hours in which its users, young and old, are playing and learning. Mobile-based games like Clash of Clans and Clash Royale are classroom favorites among my former students. Often our classroom warm-up was to pull out the smartphones and to play one another in either Clash Royale or Clash of Clans. This got kids motivated and ready to learn for the period.

Understanding the different DGBL systems that are used today are important when examining what it means to learn in a DGBL environment. Smartphones, virtual reality gear, PCs, and console-based gaming machines are all technologically afforded machines that give us new digital game-based environments to examine and research what it means to learn within them. Understanding the different types of technology players use is the first step towards understanding what it means to learn in a DGBL environment. Dondlinger (2007) points out there has been a shift in focus as literature reviews in the last decade have examined what students learned from video games instead of how we learn using video games (Aguilera & Mendiz, 2003; O’Neil, Wainess, & Barker, 2005).
                   By: Miles Harvey        Contact me @ mharvey64@gmail.com

Digital Game-Based Learning Breaks Glass Ceiling in Classroom

The educational atmosphere in my classroom has been changing, and it's worth sharing about. My practices, students, and curricula have evolved from the year before last. I re-engineered my thoughts about the digital divide and our roles as educators to provide the digital literacies needed to be a successful learner in today's society. Taking what I had learned from last year's group of students, I built a curricular bridge towards innovative digital literacy instruction in the classroom. 

I have seen a change in the subtle nuances my students make towards their learning that many come to know as developmental progress, although small, it is very important. Is this because of the changes I made towards my curriculum? How did digital game-based learning play a role in this change?

I owe much thanks to my students for giving me food for thought on a daily basis. Without such great students, I would find myself losing touch from what is truly happening in education, for they are the now of digital literacy learning.

So, what am I doing in class that has me so excited about student learning? It's like I broke the glass ceiling in my language arts classroom by tastefully infusing meaningful gamification. Using DGBL in my class this year has changed the way my students make-meaning from their literary studies. My use of DGBL changed from last year. I have scaffolded the process of literacy instruction to grow ever-more complex with the progression of the school year.

A thoughtful exploration of literacy as a form of study took place in my class throughout the year. Starting with the literate self and ending in the digital avatar of oneself, we explored how all forms of literacy shape our ability to 'read' and 'write' in the world as literate peoples. I attribute much of the success of this year's changes to the tasteful and meaning changes I made towards my progression or scope and sequence, as some call it, towards my learning goals.

So, the question remains, what does good digital game-based learning look like in classrooms today? Furthermore, what types of activities do teachers use to engage their students, and how does it really work and look like? The field needs more case studies and practitioner research on how DGBL is working in classrooms now. I feel my work with students over the last seven years has given me a clear idea about what I want to research, and how I might be able to contribute to the greater body of educational literary practices.

I have much more to say on this matter, but most is best kept until I find the right manner to lay all this out into smaller pieces of research.

1. Where does gamification fit into the language arts classroom?

2. What are other teachers doing in their classrooms towards meeting the needs of digital literacy learning initiatives?

3. What types of specific activities and practices can promote digital literacy learning using gamification in the classroom?

4. What barriers exist towards achieving equity among digital access in/out of the classroom?

I would love your feedback on this! Comments, Questions, Concerns? Comment below or email me. I love feedback and insight!

My Brain Through Consoles

In order to create a clear and concise space for explaining my long past with video games, I created a table expressing my history with video games in relation to my age, grade level, and educational institution level I was at while playing the video games discussed in this inquiry. Due to the number of video games and consoles I used in my twenty-five year gamer history, it is necessary to refer to a wide variety of consoles and games at any time. This table helps to examine how my ever-changing identity has evolved with the ever-changing technology of video games. This table will be used in the future to further investigate in detail what consoles and games I played during my childhood years in comparison with what I was supposed to be learning, and what I was learning. I will be able to match my real world identity up with the specific experiences I had with video games in the virtual world. This will allow me to juxtapose my two experiences through the lens of a researcher. I will be able to simultaneously research my identities as a learner in both the real and virtual world. By reflecting on my experiences as a younger student and comparing them to my experiences as a young gamer, I can look at my identity as a learner in both worlds to explain and isolate what I am making up as (e-dentity), and its components of construction. All of this in hopes of getting a better idea about what good learning looks like in video games, and why identity matters in all of this.

The Politcal Side of Play & Learning

Gonzalo Frasca is a video game designer and theorist whose research considers the potential of games as tools to raise social consciousness. His work is highlighted in the book, Video Games and Eduation, but I left the book and read Frasca's article titled, “Video Games of the Oppressed”. His work is tied to the idea that critical theories of pedagogy can be used as best practice in our current state of education. (Frasca 2004) says, “videogames could indeed deal with human relationships and social issues, while encouraging critical thinking” (p.85). 

How can your content area tap into issues of human consciousness? This is getting practical. For example, students do not learn about just the concepts in science, but the biology of those concepts at play in the real world. There are thousands of games out there for many systems both new and old that employ scientific concepts in its fundamental game play. In those, many contain other hidden teaching elements that are just waiting to be used as a teaching resource. Depending on the educational context, sometimes the virtual world is the best place to experience certain types of learning.

As I read through the political, persuasion, and propaganda section of this book, I keep thinking about how our rights as free and equal citizens in the U.S. have shaped so much of the current state of education and video games today. Starting off in the 50’s with Brown v. Board of Education (1954), educational equity and equality have been hot issues for concern. 

Brown v. Board of Education changed education in the United States. After this court case came to decision in favor of educational equity, it would set forth the dominoes for other similar issues to be heard. During the time of the case, education was in a rough spot. Education and schooling, like many other socially constructed things were hinged between rising tensions of inequity and social justice among racial minorities in most parts of the country. Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark case that would create a ripple in the paradigm of thought that fueled much of the effort to change how "schooling" is delivered to whom, why, and where.
 
On the other end, simultaneous growth in the area of video game development has been propelled by legal battles starting in the early 80’s. “In 1983, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts likewise decided that “any communication or expression of ideas that occurs during the playing of a video game is purely inconsequential.” This led to odd laws around the nation like in Illinois for example. There, it became illegal to play video games under the age of twenty-one in an arcade without a parent. Food for thought. We have changed a lot in thirty some odd years. What is next?

Teach Students to Question!

I have been thinking a lot about how video games can influence a student's consciousness. It is my belief that all things around us influence who we are. This happens on many levels of our lives. Think of any way you can be influenced: radio, television, movies, social media, internet, video games, books, newspapers, news stations, podcasts, education, and the list goes on and on. Let us focus on education and video games for now. These are both some of the most influential contexts, especially for learners. 

When I think of the word influence, I think of people and history. I wanted to share an example of a recent trend in video games with something found in many history classes where students investigate all different types of propaganda from various media. Reading events and making meaning from them is like comprehending a text, which is to say, we make connections and meaning from whatever we take in from the world through our senses. This can be done in video games too.

“The dissolution of the Soviet Union has forced Herman and Chomsky to revise their ideas, but the principles of their propaganda model remain relevant. Since 1991, Islamic terrorism has replaced communism as our dominant anti-ideology, reflected in video games even more conspicuously than in the news. In the wake of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, anti-terrorism games have flourished. Red storm has defined the genre with their Tom Clancy franchises, Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six, and Ghost Recon” (p.72).

 

“Although these games have superficially distinct narratives and pit us against a colorful range of real and imagined rogue states and terrorist organizations, their essential drama is the same: Some barbarian, bent on toppling a friendly government or wrecking anarchic genocide, compels quick, covert action from a U.S. –led multinational force. Inserting behind enemy lines, a small, highly trained team uses their discipline, cooperation, and the most advanced military technology to defeat a larger though undisciplined enemy force. Covert operations rule out any public recognition of the team’s heroism, but they are not in it for glory – it’s all in day’s work.” (p.73).

Getting practical here with this is easy. Teachers can use trends in video games as stated above to teach a specific concept or point. This is much like teaching theme or motifs to students. It is a matter of reading connections between different things. In the example of above, making connections to propaganda and the themes behind many best-selling video games will teach students to question their environment for deeper meaning and understanding. This is reading the situation at its finest. Now, that is reading using video games in the classroom. Remember, you don’t always have to play a video game to use it in the classroom.

On that note, I am going to play some Call of Duty 4 on my PS4. My gamer tag is Thebull450 if you ever want to play. This conversation has me thinking about Call of Duty 4, which can be played in “paintball mode” so there is no blood or gore while still getting the benefits from playing the game.